Friday, September 26, 2014

Friday Night Descent to the Fiery Depths of Despair: Pre-Michigan

Probably worth noting upfront that I’m in a foul mood, so I
suspect what little hope I had for a positive outcome tomorrow will be ball
gagged and flogged by my present demeanor. Sometimes booze just ain’t enough.
You’ve been warned.

Ah, Michigan. It seems like every year we go into this game
with the faintest glimmer of positivity, that maybe this time we won’t piss
ourselves at the sight of the winged helmets. And every year, but for three, in
my entire life, the curb stomp happens. Sometimes we lose in heartbreaking
fashion (see 03, 20), sometimes we would have been better off forfeiting (hi,
58 – nil!), but most of the time, it’s just a traditional beat down. We’ll look
game for a quarter or two, but you always know what’s going to happen: Michigan
will make a big play, we’ll fold ourselves neatly into the fetal position and
go quietly off into that good night.

I’ve been thinking to myself all week that games like
tomorrow’s are the worst. The Wolverines have been our bugaboo for 50 years –
but they look beatable. Their offense is in disarray: their line is weak,
Gardner has been a turnover machine and they can’t seem to score any points.
They have looked pedestrian at best against every FBS opponent they’ve played. Yes,
their defense has been sound, particularly against the run; but, as Gopher fans
know well, if you can’t score any points, the greatest defense in the country
is of limited value.

And while we haven’t exactly been world beaters, we’ve
looked better, more consistent than Michigan. Our defense has been solid
against both the run and pass in all four non-conference games and our running
game last week was as good as it’s ever been. Yes, we haven’t been able to
pass, it’s true. But if we can do just enough, find some way to move the ball
through the air, make Michigan’s linebackers hesitate for a moment in their run
fits, we should be able to score some points. And our defense should be good
enough to contain the Wolverine’s impotent offense.

And there it is. The hope. The dream.

All week we’ve seen and heard prognosticators pick the
Gophers to win. Some have said to lose this game would be worse than the way we
lost to them in 2011. Pointing to Michigan’s deficiencies, they suggest we’ll
be able to do enough offensively to punch them in the mouth early, and turn the
100,000 Coke drinking fans against their own team. From there, we play Gophers
man ball through 15-play, 75 yard grind-them-to-dust drives and allow our wily
defense to shut them down. Game over. The Jug returns to Minnesota.

I want to believe. I do. Part of me genuinely does. And that’s
what brings the pain. We may very well be a superior team to Michigan right
now. Judging by recruiting rankings we are inferior; but we have been much more
consistent functioning as a unit, at least offensively. The Wolverines looked grossly
overmatched against Notre Dame and Utah and fairly ordinary against a poor
Miami of Ohio team. We legitimately could be seen as the better squad.

But history is a savage. And history is smothering my hope
with an old, musty pillow. I hear people saying we have a chance, but all I see
the specter of the last 50 years. 1966: 49 – 0; 1972: 42 – 0; 1976: 45 – 0;
1985: 48 – 7; 1992: 63 – 13; 2008: 29 – 6; 2013: 42 – 13. These are inescapable
truths. The record is bleak. Players graduate, coaches retire or are fired,
teams change and evolve. But the constant has been ignominious failure.

Can we win tomorrow? Absolutely. We can win tomorrow and
launch the wretched Wolverine money into the aether with his Nebraska-branded
cousin. We can win tomorrow and situate ourselves for a 4-0 start to B1G play. We
can win tomorrow and likely end Brady Hoke’s tenure at Michigan. We have the
players, the coaches and the system to make it happen.

As a fan, though, I may be too damaged to believe. I hope, I
always hope. But, throughout my life one Gopher football maxim has generally
held true: football is a simple game – 22 men chase a ball around for 60
minutes, and in the end, Michigan always win.*

* Paraphrasing Gary Lineker’s quote about the German
national soccer team, of course.